Meta and Amazon abruptly shut down diversity initiatives, indicating a market shift that's terrible for bootcampers and could be the final straw :(
It's no secret 2023 was a terrible hiring year for all engineers and while experienced engineer hiring bounced back in 2024, entry level engineer hiring did not.
In terms of entry level hiring, In 2024 we saw big companies resume internship programs and return to the top college campuses. Those interns then gobbled up all the entry level spots if they perform well and get return offers.
We saw some entry level apprenticeships resume in very restricted numbers, such as the Pinterest Apprenticeship, receiving like ten thousand applications for ten spots. Amazon's glorious apprenticeship of the past did not return sadly.
**Unfortunately Meta just** [**"rolled back DEI"**](https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-programs-employees-trump) **and Amazon** [**"halts some DEI programs"**](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/10/amazon-halt-dei-programs-.html)**.**
This is a sign that big companies are working with the new administration, which has made statements against DEI efforts more broadly. It indicates that programs for people from non traditional computer science backgrounds is going to be low priority, and these companies are going to go all in on their traditional "top tier computer science" candidates.
Getting a CS degree isn't the answer unless it's a top 20 school.
I don't have advice yet on what to do now in 2025, but a warning for all to consider.
I wish it weren't this way personally and think that there are so many people from non traditional backgrounds that have become amazing engineers. But the fact of the matter is that at a company like Facebook, 9 out of 10 Stanford CS grads are amazing performers and 1 out of 10 bootcamp grads. It already barely made sense for them to try to find the 1 in 10 but in the spirit of brining in people from diverse perspectives it made sense - and with that last leg sawed off, I don't know what's left.
u/MundaneValuable7 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Do you think this will be the new normal for the next few years or is there a light at the end of the tunnel?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
If I disregard AI then I would say that nothing at all would change and it's the new normal. And it's likely the new normal from "traditional SWE" roles.
I think schools like Launch School that are very small and take a very long time to get into will produce exceptions to the norm and that's about it.
I'm more optimistic in AI creating a ton of new jobs that are tech-adjacent but not tech jobs. And that people will need to transition from their non-tech job into these roles. E.g. accountant -> AI enabled accountant. Kind of like how accountants BEFORE Microsoft Excel had to learn Excel and now it's just a given. A ton of accountants will have to learn AI-enabled tools and it will be a given.
Now SWE bootcamps might be done and over with, but maybe AI bootcamps that **VERY CLEARLY IDENTIFY THEMSELVES AS TRAINING YOU FOR ADJACENT JOBS AND NOT SWE JOBS** might be able to help people get a step towards the industry.
And then a 5 year plan afterwards can be to become a SWE through taking SWE college courses part time and trying to do some SWE work on the side at your company.
We're in a very awkward phase right now where the traditional SWE bootcamps are doing the following:
1. Abandoning ship on SWE programs (shutdown and "pause") but they want to milk the last $ to stay alive and some are still taking people.
2. Launching unproven AI programs that have no clear goals and are poorly implemented. "Become a Leader in AI".... sure.... former graduates with 0 to 1 year of experience will turn me into an AI Leader in an industry full of crazy engineers with 20+ years of experience who actually are leaders.
Number 2 might be transition phase and maybe we'll see things like Gauntlet AI (BloomTech's full no turning back pivot to AI).
The existing bootcamps like App Academy and Codesmith are really in trouble if they don't hard pivot away from "SWE". Codesmith's absolutely relentless drive to yell as loud as they can that they produce "mid level and senior engineers" and stubbornness to admit they do not, is going to be their downfall if they don't just drop it and switch to "take your current non tech job and be better at it with programming skills" stance that actually can work. I've told them for like 2 years that their labelling is broken and misleading and look where we're at now, they are down like 80% in enrollment and most staff left and loyal alumni are no longer standing behind them backing up these claims.
Anyways, we'll see what happens. Not all AI instruction is the same either and we'll see what happens, I don't know!
u/Yourza wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
While I agree on bootcamps being done, I think counting out any non-T20 CS degree holders is a bit melodramatic unless you only mean getting into FAANG-level companies
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah, getting into top tech companies. If you can get into a top 20 CS school you are good. Even if you have a hard time getting a job, your network is there, your degree matters and you're a step ahead.
If you go to like a top 50 or mid tier CS school you can still get a job, but it's kind of like the bootcamp world - you hear one off stories about success, no consistent paths, etc... I might still do it, just like I might still do a bootcamp for various reasons, but it's not broad advice like going to a top 20 school is.
u/Synergisticit10 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
A bootcamp should be done mostly after a degree for it to be getting results in terms of a job.
Just a bootcamp would not be enough for a person to secure a job in tech. Chances are very slim .
There will be some exceptions always
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
If you have a degree, internships is #1. If you didn't do any internships a bootcamp might be able to help, but you would be better off just making a group of 5 people and making a startup on your own and taking it as far as you can. Codesmith is a bootcamp that has like 7 weeks of lectures and the rest is projects with others, and you are paying $22K to go there... you could just find the equally talented people in the Slack who are admitted to Codesmith, and leave and do a startup with them for 4 months, put it in your resume, etc... and put the $100K total combined tuition cost towards founding the startup, ads, cloud infra etc...
If you give me a group of 20 people who are paying $22K, I'll take their $500K and run a company for them that they own 1/20th of and they will be much better off.
u/AaronMichael726 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
DEI does not impact entry level. Entry level is traditionally diverse in nature. It will have more an impact on management.
It’s a leap to think this will shift to top 20 schools because diverse candidates don’t matter anymore. But either way it’s more about market saturation t
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Entry level talent has become more naturally demographically diverse as demographics in college CS programs change. The diversity we're talking about is trying to open the top of funnel to non-traditional talent - like bootcamp grads and people who grew up in places where considering CS as a career was not even a thought, and they want to do CS and have a talent for it, but no means to catch up.
I agree internships are surging, but they came back after the FAANG layoffs, and at FAANG the conversion rate is as high as they can make it - the fall recruiting season is really to fill in slots remaining after interns get first crack.
It's just rational - you get to work with someone for 3 months and know exactly if they should convert or not, whereas a new grad without that you are taking a risk based only on the interview process and their resume... it's rational to do as much new grad headcount hiring through internships.
Apprenticeships come in two flavors and I agree with the type you are talking about. The LinkedIn Reach, Asana Up, Dropbox Ignite, Pinterest, Microsoft Leap, etc... (FAANG) are not at all about cheap labor. The money to train the people far outweighs the benefit they deliver in code productivity.
I might be a bit bias because I worked at Meta for 8 years, did UR hiring, and have partnerships with Netflix and Waymo now for intern hiring, and former employees at Meta and OpenAI in these areas now.
Definitely a FAANG bias.
u/ericswc wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
This was always the normal. 2018-2021 was a bubble.
People with good communication and rigorous tech skills are doing better.
It’s a small sample size, but my students are getting jobs. But that’s because I have more than double the content of your average bootcamp.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
People who want to run programs essentially themselves, do hands on teaching and mentorship, and personally help people get jobs, will survive 2025 and beyond and they will never get any larger than the 10,20 people that this person can take on.
And this type of program is excluded from my statements.
At the same time, some programs masquerade as having a fleet of world reknowned experts - or a founder that's missing in action and no one every sees as you get handed off people with no experience, and these programs might not make it despite being small.
u/abl3-to wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I don't think it's going to change anything. I see companies getting rid of DEI policies is more of a move to prevent lawsuits. It's deregulation to prevent any arbitration. They still need the programmers to develop all this software. More and more companies are building and mar
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I've heard this narrative at Codesmith a few times: traditionally non tech companies need to become tech companies so they are hiring tons of engineers.
1. These companies are not hiring the best of the best (because their business doesn't have high enough margins to pay what FAANG pays), so if you want to be a best of the best engineering, you need to go to a top company and learn from the best. Even if there are more jobs here, you might be slowing down your career by taking them, especially if you are ambitious.
2. A lot of these non-tech companies outsource to top companies by buying their products and integrating them. They want to buy the best software from DataBricks because they can't remotely hire the same talent as DataBricks to build similar software in house. They also outsource more development to contracting firms abroad. So the growth in need for programming doesn't necessarily turn into jobs for bootcamp grads and might turn into more jobs at top companies (which bootcamp grads have a hard time competing for) and foreign jobs.
3. Codesmith said that all the FAANG layoffs gave these traditionally non-tech companies a chance to hire ex-FAANG engineers and working there is like working at FAANG now. This is a laughable statement as while some talent laid off is good, the best people were not laid off and continue to be at their FAANG jobs. This argument is saying that taking people who were average performers or often the lower performers at FAANG and treating them as if they are top performers at these non tech companies to impart all of their wisdom to others will create a similar environment to FAANG.... and I couldn't disagree more with that. Being a low performer at FAANG might just mean it was the wrong environment for you, but you aren't going to Macy's and turning Macy's into a FAANG-level of talent.
u/Yourza wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I think someone who goes to even a top-100 school, meets the leetcode bar, and has personal projects they can speak intelligently about is probably fine for finding non-FAANG jobs. That job hunt is probably more like 8-12 months nowadays than the 0-3 months it was in the 2010s, b
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I agree the jobs are there, it's just harder! If you go to like University of Wisconsin for example (around 20th or so) then you have friends and upperclass people who work at top companies, and recruiters on campus dedicated to you etc...
It's a heck of a lot easier.
Meta didn't recruit at my school and I fought my way in exactly with your advice - amazing project that stood out as the number #1 project of the school. Whereas people at the University next door had dedicated Meta pipelines and almost a guaranteed interview if you had a high GPA or referral.
If you are extremely smart, a natural with leetcode, and very ambitious, you could probably go to to a top 100 school and get a job.... just statistically lower chance.
u/savage-millennial wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Oh great, another doom and gloom post...
FACT: Bootcamps are struggling because of the downturn in the market and an oversupply of engineers who have work experience, whether they hold a CS degree or not.
FICTION: One or two companies rolling back DEI initiatives is the "final
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I'm friends with Mark Zuckerberg and I think you need to get to know some similar people before telling me to touch grass. While that's one name, I have hundreds of friends and acquaintances you've never heard of leading all of the top companies, from OpenAI to Databricks to Google to Amazon.
Could I be wrong? Yes.
But I don't need to touch grass thank you very much.
u/Glad_Plate2305 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Not only have you plagued this subreddit for probably years now, but you have the gall to NameDrop some “big tech heads” when you are a nobody? LOL
Yeah, go call Mark. Would love to talk to him. You think he’ll know it’s Michael?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Name dropping doesn't look good, I get that, but doesn't change the fact that I'm friends with these people and I have a lot of access and insight into the industry. I'm not perfect, but you really should listen to what I have to say instead of dismissing it through bullying or insults. You do so at your own peril.
u/space__snail wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Oh shit you know Zuckerberg? So, in other words, source: trust me bro.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I'm not saying I know more than y'all, I'm here to learn from you. I'm saying that I have a unique perspective in this subreddit that is worth listening too, just like y'all have unique perspectives worth listening to.
u/SingerSingle5682 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
3 is not correct. The layoffs have been pretty pervasive and have certainly affected high quality staff. It’s a myth they were purely about removing underperforming talent. Tech companies, even FAANG have also been laying off their most senior, most experienced engineers and repl
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I've been on the other side and was a repeat top performer at Meta, and I will state as fact that no top performers are ever laid off - they are moved internally.
I also want to make it clear that even lower performers might be high performers somewhere else.
The point I'm making is that whatever it is at FAANG that makes a specific company special is built and maintained by the high performers and others leaving and going elsewhere don't bring the talent or the experience with them. Maybe they will build something BETTER somewhere else, but they won't level up a non-tech company just because of their FAANG experience. Heck even when a top performer is poached to lead a non-tech company they struggle to bring that level of execution to the new company.
u/blackpanther28 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
>Getting a CS degree isn't the answer unless it's a top 20 school.
lol what?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I can clarify - if you are looking at CS vs Bootcamp or choosing between CS schools, it's a hands down clear winner to go to a top 20 CS school.
Maybe it sounds obvious but I can give a definitive answer to that, whereas I can't for other scenarios.
u/SingerSingle5682 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I call bs. You can’t “state for a fact no top performers are ever laid off.” First of all how do you define top performers? You can use circular logic and just define everyone laid off as not a top performer.
The metaverse failed as a project. You can simply say everyone associ
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Top performers: redefined expectations or received discretionary equity, it's about 5 to 10% of the company.
u/Silver_Control4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
You have said nothing interesting.
Your post has no substance.
"You do so at your own peril." Is such a fucking edgelord teenager comment, yikes. Bald and old, yet no wisdom.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Bald and old with integrity yes. I guess you are someone who prefers making fun of people's age and appearance over discussing content, that attitude will hold you back my friend and limit yourself. Even if you think you are successful you would be much more successful not resorting to mocking people's appearance.
u/ElectSamsepi0l wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
He’s a mod here and CEO of an interview prep company.
This sub is basically a marketing honeypot. Bwahahahahaha
u/michaelnovatireplied·
If many of my customers are bootcamp grads who come to us later in their careers for help, why would I try to shut down bootcamps and cutoff a great source of customers. 🤔
u/mcjon77 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Dude. Take a breath. It's nowhere near as bad as you're stating, although I do think that the era of boot camps is pretty much gone. Then again, it might pop back up again in another 10 or 15 years.
However, the idea that you can't get a job in CS unless you attended one of t
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I agree bootcamp grads are in trouble for far larger reasons and my point is they are being impeded on every possible angle and DEI is in the mix now too.
u/Unable-Goat7551 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
\>> Getting a CS degree isn't the answer unless it's a top 20 school.
You realize there are thousands of companies out there besides Meta and Amazon right? and most of them don't require degrees from Top 20 schools. Making your argument off of two of the top tech companies in t
u/michaelnovatireplied·
They set the industry tone as industry leaders, so it trickles down and impacts everyone.
u/BeautyInUgly wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
What OP is saying is probably true tbh
I work for a tech company that hires a lot of people and with this DEI thing over there’s pretty much no path for a bootcamper to join as an SDE 1/2 due to CS / adjacent degree requirement
Unfortunately a lot of bootcampers have underper
u/michaelnovatireplied·
100% accurate at big tech
u/blackpanther28 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Why do you focus on top 20? Plenty of non-tech companies or smaller tech companies hire people outside of top 20. I dont think your focus should only be FAANG jobs
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I clarified in another comment - if you can get into a top 20 then it's a no brainer and you are good. But that doesn't mean you can't get a job outside of the top 20
u/ElectSamsepi0l wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Mods are deleting comments BWAHAHAHAHAA
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Which comments are you referring to? Reddit removed some that violated the ToS and I removed two that were factually incorrect and bullying.
If you want a platform where you can insult people's appearance, age, friends and bully them, probably you want to go somewhere else. We don't stand for that here.
u/MarkDaShark6fitty wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
We’re just going to boot strap our companies and keep all the equity we’re going indie baby
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I mean find 10 people who were going to pay $25K for a bootcamp and seed a company for $250K of funding and if it fails, put it on your resume and use it to get a job.
u/BreastRodent wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I couldn't even make it all the way throught this comment because the "I made an A- so my 4.0 is RUINED and my future is DONE for" vibes are so insane and absurd. Really???? Accepting a job from anywhere but a FAANG company might "slow down your career"??? You know that the bEsT
u/michaelnovatireplied·
It might sound controversial but I do actually think that joining anything other than a 'top tier tech company' (which doesn't have to be FAANG or even a big company and can be a top tier startup too) you will progress slower than if you joined the right one of those companies first.
I'm not saying it's not the end of your career or hopeless, but I see bootcamp grads on a daily basis who joined non-tech small companies with not super legit engineering, and they are having a really hard time leveling up to a solid tech company.
Ironically even if we disagree on this, my drive comes from trying to help increase diversity in tech and help people move into jobs they will have the most impact in.
u/OriginalAge5784 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
People graduating bootcamps have never really been competent and were only hired because companies were put under 'hire 2000 people before EOY' goals by clueless leadership, which meant teams hired people they knew couldn't do the job just to keep their bosses happy. Now the mar
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I know some exceptional bootcamp grads that through lots of ups and downs are doing amazing things and wouldn't be there if they didn't make a career change.
The problem is that those people didn't need a bootcamp to succeed, even if they credit their bootcamp as the reason for their success. The people probably could have switched through self-teaching and the right transition role. Maybe the bootcamp was even worth the cost to help, but given than they let in all of these people that never had a chance, it's hard to say the bootcamps did anything.
I think the tiny programs that help like 10 people at a time might still make sense to help these exceptional people transition, but I don't see a world where the bootcamp model as a big business will work ever again for canonical Software Engineers.
u/Jumpy_Discipline6056 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Do you anticipate unemployment in tech changing? I see a lot of fear-mongering on this thread but am not seeing the data to back there being an end to Jr positions in tech. The unemployment rate hovered between 3.4% and 3.9% Dec. 2021 to April 2024, Bureau of Labor Statistics dat
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Those don't talk about engineering levels.
AI isn't replacing jobs but it's changing the landscape and perception in ways no one can predict right now.
u/ScaleAny322 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I looked at OPs history and it's obvious he thinks everyone else's world revolves around bootcamps because his does hahaha
He actually wrote on some thread that he can't wait for HBO to make a documentary about some bootcamp he's obsessed with...while we're all mildly interested
u/michaelnovatireplied·
My Reddit interaction is almost all about bootcamps yeah, I have a life outside of Reddit... and yes someone should make a Codesmith documentary, a company that has made tens of millions of dollars and is extremely polarizing (good and bad)... much more boring documentaries out there.
u/ElectSamsepi0l wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
OP is obviously a successful guy and probably a world class coder, I'm just so turned off by the "spin" here.
I'll even yield to his point, which I believe was that DEI gives more opportunity to "non-traditional" backgrounds, but let's say you have a class of 30 attending a boo
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I agree that the topic of DEI is much more complicated than a short post about it and I didn't elaborate. I very much agree that bootcamps !== DEI.
For example Bootcamps are NOT super diverse because to do a 12 hour day 5 days a week + saturdays and have enough savings to do it, typically means you had a successful past career and are not a primary caretaker of children, or you have an environment and circumstances that have childcare.
u/Jumpy_Discipline6056 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
You are 100% correct. None of the data supports this. This thread is turning into a machine to sell the admin's products to people while they tell potential students they need to go to a top 20 school or they are out of luck. What a completely nonsensical and unbelievably elitist
u/michaelnovatireplied·
What am selling exactly? I don't offer any bootcamp, bootcamp alternative, CS degree. The more bootcamp grads the better for my business, so is it reverse psychology or something?? I don't see the angle.
u/Jumpy_Discipline6056 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Come on man what happened to you? I have been on here for a while you seemed to be less biased. FANG isn't the only way in tech and you know this. Name dropping instead of giving us facts about the industry? :|
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I gave the facts about the industry and people don't believe me, but yeah name dropping was a bad idea, should have just said leaders in general, live and learn and won't name drop people again.
u/specracer97 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Fun fact, FAANG heavily recruits devs with defense industry experience. Your first job does not have to be big tech.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I totally agree and I think my argument wasn't clear. You can go to Northrop for 3 years and then transition to Pathways program at Meta and then E4, or you can get a job as a CS grad as an E3 at Meta and be promoted in a year to E4.
My argument was that going straight to top tech generally accelerates your career, not that all other options are hopeless.
u/Pitiful-Course5273 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
\>This is a sign that big companies are working with the new administration, which has made statements against DEI efforts more broadly. It indicates that programs for people from.......
No, it means that it will be easier for your average white guy to get an entry level job. Th
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I'm not making any political statements for or against anyone, but from what I've seen through my industry lens and network is that entry level non-traditional pathways (that typically had more demographically diverse talent) are being shutdown entirely, rather they widening the funnel to give everyone easier access to those jobs.
We'll see what happens! It might be easier for an extremely ambitious "white guy" to hustle into a job, but probably not the "average white guy", the average "anything-person" probably will struggle more than before.
u/Head_Chocolate_4458 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Lol no one is cs cares about school except for MIT and Stanford.
My team at a FAANG is majority state universities or no name colleges, myself included
u/michaelnovatireplied·
1. Were they all hired directly our of school? Or from other companies first?
2. How long did they people spend at other companies before being hired?
My point here is a job at FAANG straight out of school accelerates your career, not that there are no other paths to FAANG.
u/Head_Chocolate_4458 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Faang is the second job for 9/10 on the team. Companies like Lockheed, Honeywell, ti instruments, raytheon, Intel are what the first jobs were.
Most spent 3-6 years are first company.
Of course getting the position fresh out of college does accelerate the career, but the 1 pe
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah also agree with that. Many super high performing people have non traditional backgrounds and rocket ship trajectories.
The problem is that the statistics at a zoomed out level just show that if you have a strategy to hire 100 people efficiently, you go to Stanford and MIT.
I've been on both sides of this and I understand both sides, there isn't just one way of looking at it and each person is a unique individual with agency over their own career.
u/Jumpy_Discipline6056 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
It just seems out of touch man and I think you know this. Forget about the selling aspect.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah I'll accept that criticism, I have my own perspectives and journey that biases my views and my perspectives skew top tier tech. Just like those who came from bootcamps with no exposure to tech and just got a job at FAANG three years ago after working at non tech first, will have their own journey and own biases, but valid perspective too.
u/Otherwise_Ratio430 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Stanford and MIT have small graduating classes so it should make sense that you dont see a lot of them in any given field
u/michaelnovatireplied·
In reality they recruited from the top 20 schools yeah and because of the numbers you share, they compete intensely with each other for people, which is why if you go to one of these schools you have recruiters all over the place wine-ing and dining you even if you are average at the school.
u/Otherwise_Ratio430 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I would say this is inaccurate based on my own degree which is from a top 20 institution..
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Undergrad and well before or after COVID?
u/genX_rep wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I disagree. It's just supply and demand. Right now in this moment we have excess supply of programmers and decreased demand for programmers. So of course companies will take the cream of the crop instead of bootcamp grads.
But it's just supply and demand.. when interest rat
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I mean ultimately it is. When you get to the bottom of the barrel (which is still exceptionally high at the top companies) then companies fan out to 2nd and 3rd tier colleges, bootcamps, more international schools that are costly to recruit from but have good people.
And then they return and build pipelines for the ones that work.
Failure of bootcamp grads to systematically perform well at companies is why no bootcamps has reliable FAANG pipelines... the typical grad hired just didn't perform well.... saw that first hand at Meta.
Which is one of the many reasons I'm here. It's crazy when people talk about the top bootcamps as if they are these ivy league schools, but in reality they are the lowest priority to recruit from.
The inconsistency tells me the industry is broken and hence why I'm here to try to connect the dots for people.
u/Otherwise_Ratio430 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Yes and well before covid. I am not saying that going to a good school has no advantages, it does
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Ah well before the great recession things were also different too if it's that long ago.
u/genX_rep wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Things change. The bootcamp I went to was more selective when I went than before; their 2015 style grad wasn't good enough. So I actually had a tech interview to get into mine, and now I'm part of the 25% that are still coders. But that was early covid. Now that same bootca
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I'm arguing that going to a top school is better but not that going to a worse school is bad. People from worse schools have amazing careers too, I'm just talking about the statistics and strategizing if I was looking at colleges today.
Regarding performance, yeah at Meta bootcamp grads needed so much extra support and so few even passed the interviews that they generally stopped recruiting from them. I've heard the same thing from many others. At the same time all these same people know amazing individual bootcamp grads that are awesome, it's just not SYSTEMATIC and a lot because of the unique abilities of the person and not something magical the bootcamp did. Did the bootcamp help? maybe and maybe it's worth part of the cost to go to it. but when I see some of the top boot camps right now charging $22,500 for 12 weeks and only a handful of people each cohort being those people, it's not clear. it's worth it for the average person who's considering that.
u/MathmoKiwi wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
> It might sound controversial but I do actually think that joining anything other than a 'top tier tech company' (which doesn't have to be FAANG or even a big company and can be a top tier startup too) you will progress slower than if you joined the right one of those companies
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Someone on Upwork was paid to go after me in the past so I suspect this is also related...
u/rollingdev2 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
\> it's just not SYSTEMATIC and a lot because of the unique abilities of the person and not something magical the bootcamp did
Hey so I been wondering bout this Formation thing? Like what makes it different than this?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Formation isn't a bootcamp that helps people change careers into these jobs. We help level the playing field for the interviews themselves by helping experienced engineers practice and prepare, regardless of if they know what to expect or not.
u/rollingdev2 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
What project did you create? Is it open source?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
It's not open source, it was called internSHARE and it rwas an internship review website. The thing that stood out was that we used the Facebook APIs the second they came out to incorporate people's profile info and work history into their reviews.
It might sound obvious now, but no one else was doing that at the time and they were really impressed by that.
u/rollingdev2 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
\> It's just rational - you get to work with someone for 3 months and know exactly if they should convert or not, whereas a new grad without that you are taking a risk based only on the interview process and their resume
how's someone like me supposed to get into big tech if I'v
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
If you have 2 years or more of legit SWE work experience on your resume then you are in good shape to consider Formation. We can't change your experience, so if you have the experience then we help you 1) practice the computer science fundamentals all hyper-focused on getting you to pass top tier technical interviews and on, 2) figuring out what parts of your experience are most impressive to top tier tech and practicing framing those with top tier engineers or hiring managers (both technically and behavioral)
u/rollingdev2 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
hey so how is more bootcamp grads better for your business if you only take a cut if they place? or are you charging everyone who doesnt place after x months? i cant find this on your website
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
You can pay month to month like a gym membership (this is typically senior engineers who have interviews lined up already and a short timeframe as it's very costly if you did month to month for a long time) or a $5K upfront and variable fee based on how much you increase your base salary from your last job when placed ($0 to $15K extra).
We haven't taken fresh bootcamp grads with no experience since 2023 and earlier (with a a single digit handful of except cases).
I really wish I wasn't doom and gloom but we (not just me but my entire team) have robust networks, and it's insanely hard for bootcamp grads right now.
So it's good for Formation because bootcamp grads have to take whatever job they can get right now, and then in a few years they have various gaps that we are perfect to help fill in gaps they need for really great tech job they wanted but couldn't get initially.
Not everyone wants this but most people went to a bootcamp with a dream of working in an awesome company (not necessarily FAANG) and aren't able to get that in their first or second job.
u/rollingdev2 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
oh you used your target company's api to build an app. yeah, I can see how they'd like that, even by today's standard. Imma have a think on that. thanks!
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah, would recommend this approach to this day for sure.
u/rollingdev2 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
that makes sense....but i have to get the interview first before i can frme it. from what you're saying, i'd still be cosnidered a risk based on interview performance and resume. how do i break that?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I gave the advice somewhere else but staying at one company and showing numerous promotions is a simple way to pass the 20 second resume reviews.
Interview performance, I use a personal trainer analogy. You are asking how to get into shape. You can get a cheap gym membership and do it yourself (Neetcode or Algo Expert membership), you can get a personal trainer (1-1 mentor), you can join a premium gym like Equinox that has classes and trainers and a lot of options but is expensive (Formation), you can learn on your own through books and youtube videos about how to get into shape (which works if you have discipline but might take a lot longer)
u/ActiveBarStool wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
wtf does DEI have to do with bootcamp grads 💀 y'all will grasp straws for literally anything
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Bootcamp grads almost all have non traditional backgrounds - it's rare for a CS grad to go to a bootcamp
DEI = diversity, equity, and inclusion - and in terms of recruiting - that means finding talent from more diverse backgrounds (i.e. non traditional) and giving people who have the skills for a job but aren't getting into the pipelines because of their non CS degree or lack of degree requirement)
Unfortunately, bootcamp grads weren't meeting the skill requirement and don't perform as well on interviews compared to CS grads (overall, not case by case) so you could argue that DEI doesn't really apply because the people weren't qualified anyways for those roles, but because of the diversity aspect DEI recruiters were the main ones looking at bootcamps at all before. If those people lose their jobs or are reassigned, I don't think anyone else will even look.
u/ActiveBarStool wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
ain't nobody got time to read allat dork
u/michaelnovatireplied·
takes one to know one!
u/ActiveBarStool wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
anyways you're super obviously just promoting your startup 😂 how stupid do you think people are
u/michaelnovatireplied·
You might not be from this sub, but I'm one of the mods and I'm not promoting anything here, everyone has biases but I'm not here to promote anything.
u/Souporsam12 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Touch some grass man. You having your entire identity revolve around FAANG is cringe.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Why exactly does my identity revolve around FAANG? Where did I say that anywhere?
It's a fact that if Mark Zuckerberg or Tim Cook or Sundar make statements about the industry that those statements impact others.
Meta's stance on DEI has flipped tables at a number of other companies already.
There's much more to life than FAANG, we agree on that.